Asking Questions
by Resevius
Summary: Dudley is learning about himself, the family he thought he knew, and the cousin he's finally talking about. Dudley centric, Dudley in recovery. HP/SS, DD/OFC.


Dr. Clark considered the young man seated in front of her. He was broad, easily filling the squashy chair reserved for her clients. His hands rested on the chair's arms, and she reflected that his posture appeared much more relaxed than it had been at their first session.  
"Dudley," she said, "what would you like to talk about today?"  
Dudley's face, oddly striking in its fullness, was blank. If Dr. Claark hadn't been working with him for the past three months, and were she a younger therapist, she might have interpreted the expression as brainless. When Dudley spoke, his voice was determinedly even. "I don't know, Cara. I'm sober. Three months now." He reached into his pocket and produced a small round coin. "They gave me my chip last week." A smile tugged at his mouth.  
"How does that feel?"  
"It feels ... I feel ... proud." He looked directly at her his thumb caressing one side of the coin. "You know, this is the first time I've ... achieved something." He gave a hollow laugh. "Twenty-five years old, and I have a single chip to my name." He looked down for a moment, then smiled at her. "I guess I wanna say thank you, Cara. You've helped me loads."  
"You've worked very hard, Dudley. I'm proud of you, and I'm glad to hear that you're proud, too. Congratulations!"  
"Thank you." He looked back down at the coin, and Dr. Clark could see that his eyes had become distant again. She let the silence exist.  
"I think I started using because of my parents."  
Dr. Clark waited. He had leaned forward ever so slightly, and she mirrored the movement.  
"Food filled me up for the longest time, ever since I was a kid. I ate as much as I liked, and then more. I might have ended up in Overeaters Anonymous instead, but Smeltings, my secondary school, made sure that didn't happen. I started dieting, hard, and boxing when I was fourteen. I still do — diet and exercise, I mean." Pride crept back into his voice. "In all these years, that hasn't changed. I don't box anymore, not since... Well, anyway... A couple years ago, those things stopped filling me up, too. So I gave up on trying to fill myself, and instead tried to just ... forget. To numb. ... It almost killed me."  
Dudley paused again, but his eyes never left the coin. He was spinning it slowly between his fingers.  
"So the drugs were to help you forget," Dr. Clark said.  
"Yes." Dudley looked up again, seeming to remember she was there.  
"Earlier you mentioned your parents. Do you want to tell me more about that?"  
Dudley shrugged. "They were ... loving, I suppose. I never wanted for anything. There was never anything I couldn't have." He tilted his head, frowning.  
"You look upset, Dudley."  
"Yes," he said. "I don't know why. They were good parents. To me, anyway."  
"To you?"  
Dudley's expression became closed. "I'm not supposed to talk about him."  
Dr. Clark frowned. "Him?"  
"Harry." Dudley's body tensed, and his eyes darted.  
"Dudley," Dr. Clark said, "anything you tell me is confidential, even from your parents. Unless you or someone is in danger, nothing you tell me will leave this room."  
Dudley nodded. His spinning of the recovery chip had become faster.  
"I — I haven't talked about Harry in almost eight years. ... He's my mother's sister's son. But my mum would never talk about her sister, she — hated her."  
Dudley's jaw was working furiously.  
"She hated Harry, too. So did my Dad. Harry came to live with us when we were one, after his parents died, but my parents never liked him. You see, Harry was — different. He — wasn't like us. He wasn't — normal."  
Dudley frowned again, this time seeming to look for words.  
"How was Harry different?"  
Dudley looked at her, and Dr. Clark realized that a young boy was gazing at her out of adult eyes. "I don't think I'm ready to explain. I — I still don't really understand it."  
"That's okay," said Dr. Clark. "This is your story, Dudley."  
Dudley gave a small, grateful smile, then bit his lip as he looked back down.  
"My parents gave me anything I wanted, anything at all. But Harry... Harry was always second. Worse than second. They — they treated him horribly."  
Suddenly, Dudley's head snapped up, and he began speaking very quickly, as if to push his words away from him. "When my parents gave me big meals, they gave Harry left over morsals. When I got expensive gifts and treats for my birthday, Harry didn't even get a happy birthday wish. He slept in a cupboard under the stairs. He wore my hand-me-downs, and they were always huge on him! My parents hated him, and they showed it."  
After his admissions, Dudley slumped his shoulders in, looking very much like a turtle retreating to his shell.  
"Thank you for sharing this with me, Dudley," said Dr. Clark. "I can see it was hard. How does it feel to talk about this?"  
"I don't know," Dudley said flatly, then shook his head. His eyes drifted to a chart on Dr. Clark's wall that helped clients identify emotions. "I feel ... angry ... sad ... ashamed. I participated, too. I bullied Harry."  
Dr. Clark kept her eyes on her client, keeping her expression open and neutral.  
"Do you want to tell me more about that?"  
"No," said Dudley, "Not yet. I — I meant to talk about the drugs."  
"All right."  
"I guess I was trying to forget all of that. Harry, the way my parents treated him, the way I treated him. It hurts to remember." He trailed off, and looked at her. "I suppose that was stupid. I'm not very bright, you know?"  
"I don't think so," said Dr. Clark. "A lot of my clients who struggle with addiction have shared similar experiences of using substances to forget. I hear you saying that you turned to drugs to forget something very painful, and I think this is a very understandable survival response."  
Dudly seemed unsure of how to take that. Deep sadness shown in his eyes.  
"We're almost out of time, Dudley," said Dr. Clark. "Would you like to talk about this some more next time?"  
Dudley nodded, looking relieved.  
"In the meantime," said Dr. Clark, "I want to encourage you to think about yourself as a survivor. Witnessing your parents' treatment of Harry was painful at best, potentially traumatic. You were surviving then, and I see you continuing to survive."  
"Thank you, Cara."  
He left her office, his shoulders still slumped.

Authors Note: listen to me read this chapter on episode 6 of my podcast, Broomsticks and Braille. More to come!


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